Windows of Transformation: Astrology of 7/5 – 7/10

This week, the Sun in Cancer forms a grand trine with Jupiter in Scorpio and Neptune in Pisces. This alignment of these planets each in water signs can correlate with a lot of big emotions this week, entwined with deeper psychic and spiritual processes. We are moving closer toward an eclipse at the end of this month and are in the eclipse window now, and Mars has recently stationed retrograde – each of which intensify this week’s themes around transformation. While the eclipses can signify an accelerated time of things leaving our lives and other things entering, Mars retrograde relates to a re-examination of our impulses, and perhaps finding ourselves in scenarios which necessitate an evolution of our impulses. Rather than recreating our patterns by having the same impulses, situations reveal themselves to us now that invite us to make new choices.

Venus moves into Virgo, bringing its graces into the world of practice and process – the arts of refining ourselves and showing up for growth wherever we are at. Within Virgo, it is also possible to become so overwhelmed by the immensity of a process that one doesn’t do anything at all. Conversely, by moving into a process rather than avoiding it, we may be surprised at how graceful and nourishing the results are (a la Venus).

Within this week’s grand water trine, a lot of spiritual and soulful blindspots (blindspots – whether they come from our internal, individual depths or from parts of our connection to the Universe we’ve overlooked) can be processed through the emotional body. As example…

With Mars is in Aquarius (and all summer it is retrograde!), take note of situations where you are actually being given an opportunity by life itself to act differently than you have felt conditioned to from trauma. This is like wherever there is a fear that something is going to go wrong because it has in the past. You might feel the dissonance, like finding yourself in a situation where the circumstances are actually different and you become more self-aware in that moment to step back and re-assess the normal reactive impulse (that actually in its own way, can perpetuate the old narrative rather than clearing it). That’s like a consciousness yoga for the summer and it’s potent! Mars retrogrades often work to help us refine our warrior self, the side of us who understands how to act. Sometimes this process unfolds because of frustrations or specific challenges – which under the narrative of this transit, strikes me as a kind of dojo. You can read more about this Mars retrograde season via a mini e-book I wrote here.

One other thing I feel called to mention is a felt reality that the Universe is with us, part of us. Even just following the logic of non-separation and interconnectivity guides to this point. But within that, it is a healing experience to have moments of breakthrough where it’s deeply felt that the very circumstances of our lives are also with us, not random. Interconnectivity doesn’t imply simplicity or sameness in our experience – the events of our lives and interiors can still be complexly entwined. But breakthroughs do exist. Breakthrough occurs both in our outer navigation of life and all of our challenges as well as from our interior, how we perceive and understand, and orient.

July 5, 2018

Sun in 13 Cancer trine Jupiter in 13 Scorpio: 4:04 AM PDT

(Image: Glow of an Unknown Epiphany by Andrew Norris Thompson)

This alignment also forms a grand trine with Neptune in 16 Pisces. Some themes to note:

There is a lot of grace and support here to lean into one’s edges and transform. Tuning into our emotions and sensitivity, we can be feeling what these opportunities are. In many cases, these circumstances will not be forcing your hand – you would have to consciously choose to engage with this window.

Increases in joy and wellbeing are also transformations which challenge stuck parts of ourselves.

For whatever personal transformations we are currently experiencing, the Sun in Cancer correlates with how life-giving care and tenderness is. Just because a process or inner-shift is intense doesn’t mean nourishment needs to be foregone. Softness will make the shifts easier, and engender more emotionally intelligent results. As an example, it might be the attitude of a person who simultaneously faces their fear and speaks to themselves or guides themselves as though a parent would speak to a child, or a coach would speak to a student.

This transit can also speak to the empowerment of our development – easily accessing insights around how to better take care of oneself and one’s reality.

We could look at it this way: growth has teleology – a fruition point that it is moving toward. If we stall our own development out of fear, we feel the discomfort of it. Yet if we move with what is pulling us forward, we experience a deep harmony with our own nature. Growing is not linear or necessarily easy, but there is a deep satisfaction in being in alignment with evolution, rather than resisting it.

Scorpio relates to the ways that we expand past our limitations by merging with something other than ourselves (or disentangling ourselves from something we are toxically merged with). Personal growth is not a solitary process – we encounter or seek out guides who empower us and we also feel drawn to empower others where we have skills and resources to share. Others can help reveal our blindspots, and we do not have to already be in crisis to get help. Sometimes we just need to process what is unfolding in our depths, or how we might set ourselves up for success and wellbeing at the onset of a larger journey.

Mercury in 8 Leo opposite Mars in 8 Aquarius: 4:48 AM PDT

(Image: Hilma af Klint)

Words and ideas become sharper under the influence of Mars of Pluto – which lends them the power of transformation and violence alike. Correlating with this transit, communications can be sharper at this time.

Truth without love can be a form of violence, or distorted even. As Mercury in warm heart-centered Leo opposes Mars in Aquarius, saying things “how we see them” when the seeing is not also sourced from the heart may not have the best impact.

We may give ourselves the time to process and alchemize our perceptions and insights so that we are ready to share them. There is a difference between shining light through our words that scorches and burns what it touches versus what warms and gives life to what it touches.

July 8, 2018

Sun in 16 Cancer trine Neptune in 16 Pisces: 7:41 AM PDT

This alignment can correlate with healing that comes through vulnerability. While Cancer speaks to this vulnerability, we can also consider the image of a flower that opens slowly and under supportive conditions. You don’t open the flower with will. Sensitive parts of ourselves are like that as well – able to be reached through softness and supportive conditions.

A memory of a teacher comes to mind for this transit, as she was saying that in order to heal something, you do not have to penetrate into the core of it. You can hold it and soften the edges of it, and let it unfurl and open from there. This is manageable for the emotional body, rather than being totally overwhelmed by some deep issue and closing back up because it was too much at once.

Care, rather than circumventing that to get a result – might offer a tangible emotion of redemption; spiritual relief.

July 9, 2018

Mercury in 13 Leo square Jupiter in 13 Scorpio: 2:13 AM PDT

Breakthroughs in realizing one’s agency or creative power in a given situation are possible in this transit. Wherever we have become deeply observant and capable of seeing the bigger picture (including its shadows, blindspots, conflicts, etc.) we may at some point also become aware of our individual purpose in being able to see such things. It becomes possible that we influence or impact reality with our creativity.

Influencing reality is often an edge for people because there is the fear that we will do harm to others or expose ourselves in some way. We have so many cultural and historical examples of the misuse of influence and power, that to actually own one’s power to influence reality becomes an interior paradigm shift.

Words spoken from the heart that see past boundaries of culture and time – yet are aware of the times and diversity in culture – can have a transpersonal impact. We reach for these ideas when we want to know what else is there beyond the times that we live in or the cultures we participate in, and their limitations. This does not have to be about ‘transcending’ the world, but rather elevating it while one participates in it. This can occur just by living one’s truth (discovering and embodying the true self) and serving as an empowering example to others that they can do the same as it pertains to their own true selves.

Venus enters Virgo: 7:31 PM PDT

Venus will transit through Virgo until August 6, 2018.

In your own chart, look to where you have Virgo. This is where Venus is sending their graces, as well as places in your life that you might intentionally court. If you have Virgo on the angles of your chart (ascendant, IC, descendant or midheaven), this can signify that you will meet someone or a new relationship of any kind is beginning or maturing in a significant way.

Venus in Virgo also relates to the quality of humility in love, such as being willing to relinquish our assumptions about others (and to be willing to be wrong).

This placement for Venus also correlates with the art of apologizing. Apology is an interesting relational dynamic in the way that it can interface with people’s shame as well as people’s drives to persecute others (“you should be sorry”). It takes humility from the apologizer to give and the recipient of an apology to receive alike. At a higher form, apology can be a way of dispersing nervous energy between individuals and to express what one intended, what one is taking accountability for, and how much one actually cares. Apology is a portal for forgiveness.

No matter how light or heavy the situation, the act of adjusting ourselves and our behavior to meet the other (or the earth, the world) is an act of love. Virgo also relates to the quality of discernment, encouraging us to make shifts that are wise and reciprocally enhancing, rather than simply living for and through others just because one is accommodating without discerning where to apply that energy.

Venus in Virgo also relates to a love of practice – the awareness that refinement comes with time and practice and rather than being disheartened by that, being in love with the process of growth and doing the best that one can. Venus in Virgo can be a love of imperfection – rather than judging it or even seeing it as imperfection, seeing the beauty and perfection of what is deemed imperfection.

Venus in Virgo can recognize the ways that relationships are continually moving through process, with the potential to improve. We can feel into the ways that love is a practice that we get better at just for showing up with earnesty and the willingness to move through the processes that present themselves to and inside of us.

July 10, 2018

Jupiter in 13 Scorpio stations direct: 10:02 AM PDT

Jupiter is now direct for the rest of its duration in Scorpio – the next time it retrogrades it will be in Sagittarius. Jupiter stationed retrograde on March 8, 2018. Some themes to draw attention to are:

Jupiter in Scorpio is a little swampy at times – it increases and expands this libidinal pressure to merge, transform, or for parts of ourselves to die. In a process of transformation and moving toward one’s desires, the ego structures one had before that resisted the same desire end up falling away. When a major life shift happens, we are also saying goodbye to the past chapter and all that it constituted. Treasure and gifts have emerged from this transit ever since Jupiter entered Scorpio, from entering the underworld and excavating meaningful gems from our shadows.

The soul itself is an amazing compass, and it’s our journey to discover how to contact the soul and how to trust it. The ego is not bad, but it is a source of tension and pain when we have dissonance between the ego and the soul. Learning to have the two cooperate is a way to fulfill our individual destinies and life purposes – the ego becomes a vehicle for the soul rather than an impediment to it.

Soul is always guiding us. Simply studying how others talk about soul or reading on the subject is one way that the ego merges with soul – we are given a framework to enter into it.

Thank you for meditating on the planets with me this week! If you would like feedback and reflection on your own chart or current situation, I’m available for astrology readings and soulwork sessions.

2 thoughts on “Windows of Transformation: Astrology of 7/5 – 7/10”

I love this…4 planets in Leo from 2 degrees to 27. Sun venus pluto mercury. Jupiter in Taurus opposite Mars in Scorpio..North N. In Aquarius. It has been a strange week and I feel it amping up in the weeks to come. Your words are winding around my heart and soul Thank you Sabrina